Fuel cells get smart: DuPont Fuel Cells and Smart Fuel Cell

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2004
• Weight: 34 KB
• Volume: 2004
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1351-4180
• DOI: 10.1016/s1351-4180(04)00092-3

✦ Synopsis

Avecia, Rohm and Haas roll out catalyst technology for drug makers

Avecia and Rohm and Haas have unveiled new polymer-enhanced catalyst technologies for drug production. Avecia has introduced an encapsulated palladium catalyst, Pd EnCat. The technology is said to promote higher throughput and cleaner reactions. In Pd EnCat, palladium and any required activating ligands are encased in a polyurea microcapsule bead. Avecia is to form a spin-off company to market the product and develop new catalyst technologies for pharmaceutical applications. The new company is expected to start up on 1 Jan 2004. It will initially employ 20 -mostly chemists and other scientists. Elsewhere, the new biopharmaceuticals unit of Rohm and Haas's resins business has unveiled an enzyme immobilization polymer for biocatalysis that uses oxirane chemistry. The Ambersynth resin can take the place of ion-exchange or adsorption resins, but the enzyme here is chemically bonded to the resin bead surface, enabling better control of reactions.